AdWatch: Snyder promotes himself as 'job creator'

AIRING: On broadcast and cable stations in the Grand Rapids area starting Wednesday, then statewide Thursday. Will be rotated with other ads.

SCRIPT: Announcer: "To get back to work, Michigan needs Rick Snyder."

"Rick Snyder: I earned the nickname working hard running successful businesses. I am the only candidate with a track record of creating jobs.

"My detailed plan to reinvent Michigan will create jobs for you and our kids.

"We need jobs and a governor who has created them before.

"I'm Rick Snyder, I'll get the job done."

KEY IMAGES: The ad starts with an image of Snyder with the words, "Rick Snyder, Republican for Governor" on the screen as the music used in all Snyder ads plays in the background. It shows a screen with the words, "One Tough Nerd" before switching back to Snyder, who's wearing a suit and tie.

After Snyder speaks, a new screen shows the words, "Rick has created thousands of jobs."

As Snyder talks about his "detailed plan" to fix Michigan, the screen switches from Snyder to show the phrases: "Eliminate Michigan Business Tax, cut taxes on job creators $1.5 billion, slash needless regulations, help small business."

The ad switches back to Snyder and the words, "One Tough Nerd. One Great Plan."

A new screen then says, "That's only Rick Snyder" as he talks about creating jobs.

The close-up of Snyder appears again, as he says, "I'm Rick Snyder, I'll get the job done."

ANALYSIS: The ad continues the move to portray Snyder, an Ann Arbor venture capitalist and former Gateway CEO, as a cool-headed businessman who can make Michigan's balky economy get going again. It repeats Snyder's assertion that there's a need to "reinvent Michigan" and that the only one who can do that is a businessman, not the politicians he's running against.

The ad, Snyder's eighth, doesn't mention that three of his four GOP opponents either currently work in the private sector or have done so in the past. State Sen. Tom George is in practice as an anesthesiologist when he's not at the Capitol, and Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard used to run a small business. U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra was an executive at furniture maker Herman Miller Inc. for 15 years before joining Congress.

None of his GOP opponents can match Snyder's record of helping fund startup companies that have added more than 400 jobs in Michigan and 1,200 nationally. He also can point to the fact that computer maker Gateway had fewer than 1,000 employees when he joined as executive vice president in 1991 and had 10,600 U.S. employees — and 2,700 more abroad — when he left as CEO in 1997.

Yet nearly all those Gateway jobs were lost when the company moved most of its manufacturing operations to Mexico and countries in eastern Europe and Asia after Snyder left management but remained on the board. He and others have said the board wasn't involved in the decision to move those jobs.

Snyder's ad is sure to appeal to Michigan voters weary of high unemployment and the loss of good-paying jobs. But his plan to make Michigan more friendly to businesses by cutting business taxes and regulation isn't all that different from what his opponents — including the Democrats — are saying. Coming up with a way to replace the 850,000 jobs lost in the state over the past decade — one out of every six — is going to require more than just adding several hundred jobs through startup companies in the Ann Arbor area.